Drink Gatorade. Climb Walls.

by David Burn on June 26, 2008

According to Shoot, Element 79 hired director Baker Smith of harvest in Santa Monica to make this “viral video” for Gatorade. The catch is amazing, but so is the fact that Gatorade just barely makes an appearance.
[via Shedwa]

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http://www.toadstoolblog.com Alan Wolk (The Toad Stool)

Yeah, the thing with social media is that while you want to tell them who’s behind this fun experience and then get out of the way, you can’t go whole hog artsy-fartsy and hide the product in a little shot at the end.
Because you see it’s not a TV commercial.
So people aren’t going to even think about who made it/posted it. They’ll just figure it was another amateur with some talent and that’s that.
But having a larger Gatorade presence somewhere that actually registered wouldn’t have made the video any less worthy of being passed along. (No one is more afraid of letting an ad be an ad than the people who work in this business.)
http://www.brainsonfire.com/blog Spike

BTW, the whole thing is fake and pieced together.
http://adpulp.com David Burn

@Spike – That’s like saying “The Matrix” is fake.
@Toad – It’s not a commercial, so why make it play by a commercial’s rules?
suede

Isn’t it fair to say that anyone under a certain age who sees this kind of thing on YouTube et al knows most online videos are all sponsored by someone in some way? I really doubt if the whole “it’s revolutionary because we hid the logo” argument is even relevant anymore. The audience is in on it. They get it. On a different note, what of all the talk that this idea was done by Powerade a few years ago, same ballgame video treatment etc. Any truth to that? Just curious.
http://www.toadstoolblog.com Alan Wolk (The Toad Stool)

@DavidBurn: “It’s not a commercial, so why make it play by a commercial’s rules?”
But that’s the whole point!!
It’s not “playing by a commercials rules” at all- quite the opposite. It’s a YouTube video. No one’s going to bother to try and figure out where it came from as they pass it along. (Versus a TV commercial, where a hidden logo might actually call up some intrigue.)
And without that, no one’s going to know that Gatorade had anything to do with this.
And to Suede’s point, the audience gets it. They won’t care if you start it with something as egregious as “Gatorade Presents Great Moments In Sports History” (not suggesting that, just saying that even something that blatant wouldn’t stop people from passing it around.)
http://adpulp.com David Burn

Toad, I know it’s not playing by a commercial’s rules, but you’re asking it to.
http://www.toadstoolblog.com Alan Wolk (The Toad Stool)

I guess I’m not getting your point David.
What “rules” does a commercial have?
Social media is still an advertising vehicle.
If we don’t know who made it, what use is it?
If the video was made by two kids hoping to become directors I’d tell them the same thing.
Maybe you can expand on your point?
http://adpulp.com David Burn

My point is that you CAN “go whole hog artsy-fartsy and hide the product in a little shot at the end.”
Like Suede says, people are hip to it, they’ll figure it out, especially if the vid was seeded on a YouTube page “owned” by Gatorade (which is what I would recommend versus a logo treatment or “brought to you by” treatment in the video itself).
http://www.toadstoolblog.com Alan Wolk (The Toad Stool)

David: Then we’ve been saying the same thing all along!
All I was pointing out was that there needed to be SOME way for you to figure out that this was from Gatorade.
If the YouTube page is a Gatorade page, that’s certainly enough of a tie-in. You were making it sound like the only clue was the tiny Gatorade bottle under her chair at the end.
Because if they did that it or make it “G-Man457′s YouTube page” and you had to work to figure out who it’s from, then that’s silly.
If the “sponsorship” is right on the host page, as you say it is– that’s ideal.